APEC 2004 in Photos

The APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) Summit ended yesterday. 21 world leaders from nations in the Pacific Region came to Santiago, Chile, for a 3 day summit. Among them, was US President George W. Bush. Everyone knows how much I personally hate the Shrub, but Chile is so far away from the war that I never realized that the feeling was so general. I went googling around the Internet and I found these amazing pictures.

It’s quite incredible that Chile’s major newspapers didn’t report these incidents (except for a couple of small headlines), the TV networks did, though. It smelled like the newspapers (the twolargest ones are right-winged) wanted to portray a tranquil image of Chile to the world, when actually, all these protests where happening.

From what I could gather from all the independent sources on the internet, there where over 100,000 pacific protesters in at least the 3 largest cities in Chile. That’s a pretty large number, considering the Chilean government declared holiday on those days so that the city would be quieter and most of the people (as it happened) would get out of town (it’s spring over here). (For those of you with no sense of south american geography, Chile is a very narrow country, the beach is less than an hour away from anywhere.)

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was among the 21 world leaders attending the summit. Seen here walking with Chilean President Ricardo Lagos.

Lagos (Chile), Bush (US) and Putin (Russia) wearing Chilean ponchos. I’m including these pictures to show that although 21 leaders where present, only Bush and China’s Hu Jintao incited protests.

Lagos is left-winged (like a Democrat) and is very loved in Chile. I understand that he had no choice but to accept Bush’s visit, but I’m actually very sorry he did. Just like he rejected the invasion of Irak before the UN (Chile being part of the Security Council whose vote was needed to give clearence to Bush for the invasion — we all know how that went), he could have asked Bush to “stay at home”.

“In the next shot, Bush asked Koziumi to ‘pull my finger.’ No wonder Cheney’s in charge.”

The only image I could find of the protests against Human Rights abuse in China.

Dear US Citizens (specially Bush supporters): this is the hatred that Bush is creating towards your country.

Images of the Protests:

“Hang in there Fallujah”

I love this image. Protest where only authorized on a single day (BEFORE the arrival of President Bush) at a specific place, but, obviously, demonstrators wanted to go out and protest every day of the summit, wherever they wanted. Riot police at first just appeared (but didn’t arrest anyone) to intimidate the protesters and see if they would quiet down. This is a schoolgirl kicking a Riot policeman who’s wearing all his battle gear.

“USA uses you”

“Fucking Monkey – EVOLVE”

Toilet paper.

Dolls covered in red paint.

Riot police trying to break up the pacific protest with violence. The protests went on all day long. Riot police would break them up in one point, and everyone would re-gather at some place nearby and keep marching.

At one point the pacific protests where infiltrated by anarchists (as it always happens), and the line started to blur. Riot police arrested 270 people in one day.

These images of protest are incredible and inspiring. I feel compelled to say that the actions of this awful president do not speak for what I believe, for what the people in my life believe, or for the way in which I constitute the complicated notion of “American” identity. It is a heartbreaking time to live here, knowing that our protests, votes, and outrage about domestic and foreign “policies” go unnoticed and uncared for by the current administration, and knowing that increasingly, the world community sees “us” as a monolithic bloc of irrational aggression. I ask the protesters to fight with us, the over 50 million people who know that George Bush is NOT OUR PRESIDENT.

I’m glad to see there was protest and hope that president lagos took notice. But i believe dialog is the only way to calm down extreme US-led actions, so I am also glad the USA president wasn’ old to _stay home_.

He is due here in canada in a few weeks, i what kind of demonstrations wil be held…

jean,
the problem is that Bush doesn’t react to dialog or protests. he doesn’t even take notice of what the rest of the world thinks. diplomatic “gestures” like saying “you’re not welcome” have more weight. (i think).